APOLOGY REJECTED, JAPAN WILL NEVER FORGIVE THE U.S. FOR HIROSHIMA

October 14 2011

Washington, D.C. – As is the case in our private lives, sometimes nations make big mistakes and spend a lot of years fretting about them, mulling them over, before finally trying to make amends. Sometimes those mistakes are ancient, barely worth worrying about, but sometimes the effort to make good happens in a relatively short period of time.

Sometimes, though, those amends are ignored or outright rejected, as now appears to be the case with an effort by the U.S. government to apologize for nuking thousands of civilians during World War II.

The leaked cables indicate that the Obama administration had made an overture to the government of Japan which would give a formal apology for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but was flat refused by the Japanese. On the surface, the rejection had to do with current political and military participation between the two nations, but insiders have detailed a much more significant reason for the rejection; that Japan will never, ever, never ever, accept an apology for those attacks but will instead rely on history to avenge the dead.

“The Japanese were very polite in the rejection, as one would expect, and the Obama administration took them at their word that it had to do with the present and future, not the past. This new information is something else entirely and really has them

concerned about what the Japanese may be planning,” said a U.S. government insider. “We all remember what happens when the Japanese get angry, or stay angry, and
that’s the last thing anyone wants. The two countries get along now but they did before the war as well. There is no guarantee that this peace will last in any respect and they have this old grudge to hold onto.”

The attempted apology came in late 2009 and has apparently not been discussed since, at least between the two nations.

“The concern is that this is something seething deep inside the Japanese people, something that will only get worse as time goes on. The current leadership will not always be there and future governments may not be so willing to put things aside, especially considering how big those events really were,” continued the insider. “I mean it may come to a point when a future administration, a U.S. administration, has no choice but to demand an apology so that the two countries can move on peacefully, even if that means doing so at the point of gun. Sometimes that’s the only option to make someone listen.”

The U.S. currently has the bulk of the Pacific fleet in and around Japan.

“Japan is not doing well economically right now and that is likely only going to get worse going forward, which will put them in a desperate situation and the last thing we need is a desperate Japan. They can mobilize quickly and when they do, well we have seen what can happen,” continued the insider. “We are concerned that future administrations here simply won’t be as tolerant of their rejections as this one is and that that might lead to a major rift in the future. The last thing anyone wants is to see more Japanese civilians die because their government is so obstinate but it is a very real possibility, unfortunately.”